The cool air blew over the rooftops, rattling dryly through the unusually quiet streets of Brockton Bay.

A nervous quiet.

A tense quiet.

The kind that comes before rolling thunder, or a raging fire.

Or the kind of quiet that develops in a part of Brockton Bay where people are afraid to make any noise, not wanting to attract the attention of the junkies and whores wandering the streets.

'If I intend to clean up this city, let alone this planet, my home will be first the first place cleansed.'

Taylor's breath rattled through the cold, metal masks rebreather/voice modulator. Impatient growls echoed forth instead, matching her current mood as she flew above the city, arms held to her sides as she steadily swept her head back and forth, searching for any sign of the man her intelligence had said was making an appearance tonight.

'For all his talk of throwing a party, it still seems so very quiet.' Taylor thought, her breath, huffed in exasperation, instead coming forth in a slightly louder growl. Eyebrows arching under the mask another thought occurred.

'This rattling must be adjusted when I return.' Another breath turned growl came out, and her frown became more severe. 'There is setting an impression of unassailability, and then there is silliness, and this verges on the latter.'

Before such thoughts could start impairing her sour mood even further, a small group of men, four in number appeared from a side alley a few streets away from her.

Looking down with telescopic optics, Taylor knew right away that she had found what she was looking for.

The men wore ill-fitting and filthy clothing over stick like limbs, weapons under the clothes making hard, obvious impressions. And though they were talking, joking, laughing, and giving each other hearty backslaps, sunken eyes roamed from underneath their overhung, pale brows, searching the street feverishly, as if expecting an attack at any moment.

A group of 'soldiers' then.

Excellent.

Taylor alighted on a nearby roof, not risking making more noise as the pilot fish slowly meandered down the street, and hopefully, towards tonight's quarry.

XXXXXXX

A careful approach bore fruit as Taylor came upon a large warehouse set right next to the waterfront of the Docks. Music was pumping loudly, with a plethora of colors flowing out of the slit below the closed sliding metal door placed at the front of the building, facing towards the street.

Two men stood at the side door to the warehouse armed, and waving handguns about, giving brief pat downs to the four she had been following, letting them in the door one by one as they were cleared. A handful more stood on the roof, armed with assault rifles, wandering and searching the cold night.

Concealed in the shadows as she was, she began carefully plotting her entrance.

'The men on the roof are no threat, but should be taken down before they become a problem to someone else. The real question lies in who is inside the building and if they can hear.'

A particular loud bass drop shook the building Taylor stood on, the windows below her rattling noisily with the vibrations.

'On second thought, they wouldn't even hear me if I caved in the roof.'

Activating the rocket boosters installed in her boots, Taylor flew in a parabolic arc towards her mission.

Flashback

Danny was working steadily on the project strewn on his workbench, muttering indecipherably under his breath, as she rested on the concrete. The sound of his pencil scratching, and tool scraping the wood were always so soothing to her, like his own style of lullaby.

It slowly came to a halt though, and she could hear the creaking of the discarded school chair he sat on as his wait shifted.

"Sweet pea?" His voice warm with mild concern. "You know intellect stagnates when unchallenged. What are you doing?"

"Trying to think through something mom said once." She said, sitting up with a groan.

"Anything I know of?"

"Well," she said, pausing to assemble her thoughts. "You know how she used her power, right?"

"Sure," Danny answered, nodding his head slightly. "She said she used ambient energy from the environment to form 'beams' of pure electrical energy."

"Right, but" Taylor waved pointed her finger outward, trying to grasp the elusive subject. "She also theorized that since it was multiple sources of energy she was absorbing, thermal, kinetic, electrical, no matter the source, and converted it into her bolts of lightning, it should be possible to express them in multiple ways as well."

Motioning towards crash test dummies long ago scoured and blackened by blasts of lightning, she continued. "So instead of electrical energy, kinetic, or thermal, or magnetic."

"How about chemical?" Danny asked with a raised eyebrow. "Or nuclear? Elastic as well."

"Nuclear and Ionization involve sub particle physics, which I will avoid until I have what should be the basics down." Taylor said with a frown, turning to face her father. "Chemical energy is about altering chemicals from one state to another, and I lack a method for establishing the 'restoration of a deformed object'."

Taylor shook her head and turned back to the dummies. "No, the only ones that make sense to try now are electrical, thermal, magnetic, kinetic, and gravitational. And even then I'm avoiding the last one for now."

"Did your mother ever proof her theory?" Danny asked politely, if a little hesitantly.

"Yes and no." His daughter spoke up after a moment. "She said that she was able to produce a magnetic field once, but she said that she couldn't replicate it."

"Hmm." Her father intoned, taking his stubbled chin in a scrawny hand. "Whelp, you know what I always say when I'm stumped how to proceed?"

"Experiment, experiment, experiment." Taylor replied, a small smile making its way onto childish lips. "Because the research data is insufficient."

"That's right!" He said, giving a happy chuckle, before crossing the room and giving his little girl a hug.

"Now I want you to keep going on Doofy, Dumbo, and Davis here," pointing to each of the three remaining crash test dummies, he father extricated himself from her embrace. "And I am gonna raid the freezer. See if we have any more of those ice cream sandwiches. Ok?"

"OK!" She let out loudly in excitement, feeling truly happy.

Flashback End

The men on the roof were blown off the building in a flash of green and a crack of thunder.

Crashing through the warehouse roof feet first, Taylor made for an impressive sight.

Her mother's cloak billowed up behind her, curling gracefully in the air and attached to a tunic overlaying Taylor's armor, the same shade of emerald. Bolts of power flew from her outstretched hands searing the air, and frying the lights of the warehouse as she descended. The drug fueled party goers below her, in all positions in all states of dress, looked up in despair and cried out in a near unanimous shout.

"RUN!"

"IT"S EIDOLON!"

Two still working sets of lights still flash their harsh prismatic colors, making the sight of the fleeing druggies seem like straight from a horror flick.

Glancing about the 'dance floor', Taylor could see scattered mattresses, broken glance, and

'But where is the belle of the ball, I wonder.'

Peering around, Taylor's eyes whipped back to what would have been the office during the times when the building was actually used as a warehouse, when she saw a shadow flicker against the glass window.

A split-second later, the glass exploded outwards, partially, before being drawn back to a shortish figure leaping through the window frame.

He was a pink skinned man with large eyes set in a chubby face, quaking unattractively as he screamed during his descent. The glass from the window began to cover his body, as if magnetically attracted to the strange man's bulging belly.

It didn't matter to Taylor however.

It wouldn't help him.

A bolt of lightning seared the air, striking the screaming man in his protruding belly, and sending him flying into the staircase leading up to the offices towards the end of the warehouse, objects that had gathered around his skin shedding during his impromptu flight..

"AHH!" The man cried out, rakishly thin limbs jerking spasmodically. "AHH FUCK!"

Crossing the warehouse towards the downed man, he weakly turned his head, eyes dazed and out of focus.

Stopping a few feet away, Taylor glared down at the possibly concussed Merchant. One she recognized from her prior intelligence campaigns.

Mush; Changer 4. Real name unknown. Affiliated with the merchants. Arrested several times for drug pushing, possession and evading arrest. Not much of a fighter.

"The fuck are you..?" The goblinoid man slurred. "Fuck do you want, shitstain?"

Taylor opened her mouth to speak, and the growling voice echoed from the modulator.

"YOU WILL TELL ME WHERE SKIDMARK IS."

"f-Fuck…you."

Raising a hand towards her downed foe, Taylor spoke again.

"SO BE IT!"

A short blast of lightning crossed the distance between her gauntleted hand and the villains chest, arching his back high into the air, with him giving a short strangled yell after the hit.

Mush fell to the concrete again, gasping for air, and unhealthy grey pallor overcoming his skin.

"WHERE?"

Mush continued panting, spitting a little froth as he did so.

Another bolt fell.

The Merchant's body jumped an inch of the grown, then flopped back to the concrete.

"WHERE!"

Then the drop down truck entrance exploded inwards in a storm of fire and metal. Reacting quickly, Taylor erected a glowing green shield in a dome around her and the downed Merchant cape.

As the smoke cleared, Taylor could make out what looked like a big rig truck.

OR what used to be one anyway.

Then entire front had been turned into a mishmash of junkyard parts, clashing against each other across the vehicles grill. And haphazardly thrown on at what seemed to be every available spot was either a turret, cannon, or machine gun, all of which were pointing directly at her.

'And we have Squealer, but where is-'

"The FUCKING SHIT are you doing at my party, Cocksleeve?"

'Bingo.'

Skidmark sat through where the windows used to be located on the rig, a stained, brown overcoat falling across his back. His dark skinned face was half covered by a mask, leaving free only his chin and lips, which were chapped to the extreme.

Ignoring the Merchant leader, she turned instead to look at the pathetic, quivering pile of flesh beside her.

Glaring down at the man, she raised a finger imperiously, pointing between his eyes.

"YOUR USEFULNESS HAS EXPIRED"

A beam of green flame, half again the size of her finger falls through the scums head, giving it a glow like lit tallow.

The man, formerly known as Mush, gives another twitch, and lies still.

Taylor caught a short whimper uttered from the driver seat of the tank, muffled by the roaring engine.

Skidmark's face was open in a snarl as she turned back to him, his right arm hanging low and jerking in a clench-unclench motion.

Opening a snarling mouth of rotting teeth, Skidmark screamed out at her. "WHO. THE FUCK. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE ASSWIPE?!"

Taylor crossed arms across her metallic torso and intoned back.

"I AM YOUR DOOM!"

Skidmark lifted his arm with a scream.

Squealer opened fire with her vehicular arsenal.

Taylor stood in the mouth of the inferno, unimpressed.

The battle was joined.

AN:

This chapter seems a little batman-esque for my tastes. Going personally after scum isn't much Doom's style, but she doesn't have Doombots to send.

Yet.

Next chapter though…much Doomier.

Another chapter done